Chapter 114
Mason's POV
I was the intruder here. The uninvited variable that had disrupted whatever careful balance they'd built. I had no claim to this space, no right to make demands or expect acceptance. If anything, I should be grateful Alex hadn't physically thrown me out the second he'd discovered me.
If I had what he had—this apartment, this life, this girl—I'd guard it too. I'd see every stranger as a threat, every unexpected variable as something that needed eliminating.
But Ethan was different. He'd settled on the arm of the couch, close enough to intervene if I started to tip over but not crowding me, and there was something in his posture that read as genuinely unbothered by my presence. Like he'd already accepted this weird situation and moved on to the practical business of dealing with it.
Maybe that's what happened when you were secure enough in your place in someone's life. When you knew you weren't going to be displaced by the first stray Emily dragged home.
Or maybe—and this thought sent something hot and uncomfortable through my chest—maybe Ethan just didn't see me as a threat at all.
Not in the romantic sense. Not in any sense that mattered.
Just a sick kid who needed help. Nothing more complicated than that.
That should have been a relief. Should have made this whole situation easier to navigate.
Instead, it made something in me twist with an emotion I didn't want to examine too closely.
"How's your head?" Emily asked, pulling my attention back to her.
I realized the washcloth had gone warm against my skin. She reached out and took it from me without waiting for an answer, dunked it again, wrung it out, and pressed it back to my forehead herself this time.
Her fingers brushed my hairline, and I had to fight the urge to lean into the touch. Had to remind myself that this was temporary. That her kindness had limits, just like everyone else's, and I'd be stupid to start depending on it.
But when her hand lingered, checking my temperature again, the way she frowned at what she felt there made something dangerous unfold in my chest.
Hope. Or something close to it.
Emily glanced at her phone, and I caught the way her face tightened. "Shit," she said quietly. "I'm already late for work."
She looked between me and Ethan, then back at her phone, clearly torn.
"Go," Ethan said before she could speak. "I've got this."
"Are you sure?" Emily asked, but she was already standing, already moving toward the hallway where I assumed her keys and bag were. "His fever—"
"I know how to monitor a fever," Ethan said, and there was something almost amused in his tone. "Played through enough of them myself. If it spikes, I'll text you. If it gets dangerous, I'll take him to urgent care myself."
Emily hesitated, her hand on the back of the couch, her eyes finding mine. "Mason, is that okay? Ethan's going to stay with you while I'm at work."
I wanted to tell her I didn't need a babysitter. Wanted to prove I could handle this on my own like I'd handled everything else in my life.
But the truth was, the idea of being alone right now, fever-sick and disoriented in a place that still didn't quite feel real, made something tighten in my chest.
"Okay," I heard myself say.
"Okay," Emily echoed, but she didn't move yet. She looked at Ethan. "Keep the washcloth cold. Make sure he drinks water. If he can keep down food—"
"I've got it," Ethan said firmly. "Em. Go. Your staff's probably losing their minds by now."
She nodded, grabbed her bag from somewhere I couldn't see, and then she was crouching down beside the couch one more time, her hand finding my shoulder.
"I'll be back this afternoon," she said, and the way she looked at me made my throat tight. "You're going to be fine. Ethan will take care of you."
Before I could respond, she was gone, the door closing behind her with a soft click that seemed too final.
The apartment felt different without her in it. Quieter. Less certain.
I let my eyes drift shut, the washcloth cold against my forehead, Ethan's presence solid somewhere behind me, and tried not to think about what would happen when the fever broke and I couldn't hide behind being sick anymore.
Tried not to think about Alex, who'd disappeared somewhere during Emily's rush to leave—probably to his own room, probably still radiating that cold disapproval.
No, what actually kept my thoughts churning even as exhaustion pulled at me was something else entirely.
Emily had been clear. Direct. "I'm not thinking about him that way."
Those words should have shut down whatever dangerous current had started running through me the moment she'd touched my forehead with such careful concern. Should have made it easy to slot myself into the role of charity case, grateful recipient, kid who needed temporary help and nothing more.
But lying here on her couch, in the space she'd just vacated, still feeling the phantom warmth of her hand on my shoulder—I couldn't stop my mind from circling the same question.
How did you make someone like Emily see you differently?
How did you go from being a problem she'd solved, a stray she'd brought in from the rain, to being someone she actually wanted?
Not in some abstract future sense. Not as a project or a responsibility.
But the way she clearly wanted them.
I had no blueprint for this. No experience to draw from. Every relationship I'd ever witnessed had been transactional or violent or both, and the idea of someone choosing to be with you because they actually wanted you there—not because they needed something from you, not because you were useful, just because they wanted you—felt like a foreign language I'd never learned to speak.
But if two men had figured out how to make her want them enough to break every conventional rule, then maybe it wasn't impossible.
Maybe there was a way.
I just had to figure out what it was.